Gratitude Register

Everyone is atheist until the plane starts falling. I have no clue who said this.

The numerous different stories that act as catalysts for returning to God and thinking about the existence of a grand designer or creator, shared by people across the globe, are interesting. There are a variety of patterns, and often the most interesting ones are those concluded through epistemic rationality rather than convenience or bias—where there was evidence that God existed, for them. One pattern is how God existed in everyday life. A good example is the historical belief that the creation of all temples and religions around the world throughout history is an innate, lowkey, subtle need for God.

And this is what I’m interested in pulling strings from and building upon—what I felt right before I sleep. I’m not diving into theology, but rather sharing a concept I just coined: “Gratitude Register.” This is what I assume as the “where I find God” in my “everyday life pattern.” No matter what beliefs I’m holding or how religious or spiritual I am at a particular point in time, at the end of the day (literally) I find myself accounting for what was good today and in my life. This happens by default; it’s the way your psyche validates the day, your memory works, and you yourself try to make sense of all the nonsense you were doing throughout the day. Depending on how I define good (which of course includes biased beliefs or definitions from religion), I can bring different combinations of them. Now, if these things outweigh the misfortunes I have, that means it is a good day (again, there is no agreed upon way of defining and measuring misfortunes). Hence, some positive feelings may start to appear—one that stands out so loudly is gratitude. This feeling is a well known visitor, outshining others through its powerful urge.

Gratitude: “I’m here.” Translation: I’m grateful. Gratitude: “I need to make a decision so fast (urge).” Translation: I need to be grateful “for someone.”

Translation is what the mind tells about the chemicals.

This urge—and the small space I get to make the decision to fill it with someone—is what makes gratitude such a special “positive feeling.” This is how I translate it as a way to know God, and I’m feeling it every day. To know this Gratitude Register (just like how a CPU register is filled quickly and needs to assign the value to some process) requires some form of mental allocation.

If it happens and if I’m a full time atheist (I don’t wish that for anyone) I believe this interaction, of validating my day and unconsciously inviting “gratitude” as a result of just being human, shall rescue me from muddle and may guide me toward the light.

This is a piece of my honest and truthful analysis of my feelings toward gratitude.